


Neruda

by thebisexualbanshee



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergent, Fluff, M/M, Romance, Season 12 spoilers, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 12:50:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12211641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebisexualbanshee/pseuds/thebisexualbanshee
Summary: Sometimes, Castiel drags Dean with him to art shows and poetry readings, and Dean always protests, makes a show of rolling his eyes at abstract paintings and huffing that the string quartets are “good, but got nothing on Zep,” but Castiel knows his heart. When Dean thinks Castiel isn’t looking, he catches the hunter’s gaze lingering on the art hanging in their frames, feels his soul electrify and swell when a violin and cello sing out their sorrow, sees the goosebumps rise on Dean’s arms and hears his heart lurch when a poet’s words hang heavy in the air. Sam, of course, comes willingly; takes great and obvious pleasure in dissecting the works of art to Castiel, explaining the parts the angel doesn’t quite understand, but feels. Before long, Sam is recommending books—classics, modern poets, and even some Vonnegut, with Dean’s insistence—and those silent hours of Castiel’s nights he has to himself when his human brothers are sleeping are spent consuming words, and books pile up quickly on the nightstands beside his unused bed. And before long, Castiel understands what poetry is meant to do to the heart.





	Neruda

For someone who’s spent most of his long life as a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent, Castiel is surprisingly fond of the artistry of humans. He blames it on his brief stint as one of them, years ago, after he let one of his brothers—the Scribe of God, no less—take advantage of his trusting nature (something else, he’d realized later, he could attribute to the past almost-decade he’d spent in the company of mortals), but it isn’t a malicious kind of blame. No, in fact, he’s grateful for it; angels have their jokes, and of course, their stories, but these are never the children of their own creation: all their so-called “art” comes from the lore of God, their beloved Father, who created them with love and grace, but not with souls. And souls, the angels knew, were part of their Father’s own nature: the stuff of raw creation, that which makes God, and humans, able to make something out of nothing—to invent worlds and languages and magic—even if, for humans, these things only manifest on paper and canvas, are in the mind. 

But Castiel wasn’t like other angels; he never had been. From his inception, God knew he’d end up the foil to Lucifer: both fallen, both for love, but love of different things. Lucifer, of course, for love of his Father, and the heartbreak of humanity taking his place as most beloved child; and Castiel for love of Man, his Father’s most perfect creation—and Castiel doesn’t know it, but this love for humankind was always what God intended, made him more like his Father than any other angel in creation. In fact, if Castiel ever thought to ask, God might have let Castiel take his place as Lord on High—not for power, but compassion: the truth is that even Gods grow weary from caring; and who but himself had ever loved his creation more? Of course, it was Castiel, though the angel never knew.

So when he isn’t hunting with the Winchesters, or dealing with the Crisis of the Week in Heaven, Castiel spends his days in art galleries, perusing paintings and photography, charcoal sketches and musicians in museum lobbies, marveling at the god-like wonder of the creativity of the human soul. He doesn’t understand it all, he’s the first to admit. But this isn’t frustrating; it’s a thrilling confusion, a complexity in these mortal workings that makes him awe, makes them a kind of new holy to behold. 

Sometimes he drags Dean with him to these art shows and poetry readings, and Dean always protests, makes a show of rolling his eyes at abstract paintings and huffing that the string quartets are “good, but got nothing on Zep,” but Castiel knows his heart. When Dean thinks Castiel isn’t looking, he catches the hunter’s gaze lingering on the art hanging in their frames, feels his soul electrify and swell when a violin and cello sing out their sorrow, sees the goosebumps rise on Dean’s arms and hears his heart lurch when a poet’s words hang heavy in the air. Sam, of course, comes willingly; takes great and obvious pleasure in dissecting the works of art to Castiel, explaining the parts the angel doesn’t quite understand, but feels. Before long, Sam is recommending books—classics, modern poets, and even some Vonnegut, with Dean’s insistence—and those silent hours of Castiel’s nights he has to himself when his human brothers are sleeping are spent consuming words, and books pile up quickly on the nightstands beside his unused bed.

“Here—you might like this,” Sam says to Castiel one night in the bunker’s library, after a particularly lovely reading that shook the seraph to his core. 

“Neruda’s Sonnets,” Castiel says, reading the cover and taking the small, battered book from Sam’s hand. He thumbs the pages. “It looks well loved. I’ll treat it gently. Thank you, Sam.”

“Yeah, hope you like it. Dean would never read it,” Sam says, grins helplessly to Castiel. “Says poetry is a chick thing. Doesn’t matter that it was written by a dude…”

Castiel smiles—a human gesture that’s becoming more and more his own. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy it. I’ll come to you with questions?”

“Of course,” says Sam, and stretches. “Catch you in the morning, Cas.”

“Goodnight,” says Castiel, and watches the younger hunter pad down the hall. He hadn’t seen Dean since they got home, and, assuming he’d already turned in, made his way to the kitchen to ‘borrow’ a beer or two. Angel or not, he’s still a little less celestial than he used to be, and he’s grown fond of little human pleasures. He’s angel enough, though, that he doesn’t need the kitchen’s light to know Dean’s lounging at the table—hears his slow heartbeat before he even makes it through the door. 

“Hello, Dean,” he says softly as he crosses silently to the table. “I thought you’d gone to sleep.”

“Tried to,” Dean answers from somewhere in the dark. “Didn’t take. Hit the light, if you want.” Castiel does, and beneath the table, Dean’s leg extends to push out the chair across from his, nods at the book in the angel’s hand. “Oh God, what chick shit’s Sam got you reading now?”

“It was written by a man,” Castiel protests.

“Yeah, a man who knew poetry gets you laid,” Dean snarks, folding his arms. 

Castiel rolls his eyes and crosses to the fridge. “I’m going to have a beer. Are you?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, settling. “Yeah, guess I will. Thanks.”

Castiel grips two bottlenecks in his long fingers and seats himself. Without a bottle opener, he easily pries the caps off both, arching a challenging brow at Dean as he slides an open beer across the table.

“Show off,” Dean mutters, taking a sip. 

“I learned from the best,” Castiel smirks, and toasts Dean briefly.

Dean snorts. “Guess you did.”

A hush falls over the kitchen and Dean looks away from Castiel’s probing gaze, down to the bottle in his hand, the smiles fading slowly, naturally from them both. Dean takes another sip and Castiel keeps watching Dean, scanning the lines of his face like a palm-reader. There, between the hunter’s furrowed brow, the long lifeline, interrupted so many times; the worry lines creasing his forehead, crows-feeting the corners of his eyes; the press of his lips a heart line Castiel feels desperate, but unable, to discern. 

“Strange,” Castiel says quietly, the word whispering out unbidden as he studies the hunter’s face. 

Dean blinks up, meets the angel’s gaze. “What’s strange?”

“Just—humans. You,” Castiel says. He smiles at the subtle shock that widens Dean’s eyes. “Every time I think I’ve begun to figure you out, you surprise me with something new. Some complexly beautiful turn of phrase,” he looks away, finally, to consider the book of poetry, now laid on the table before him. “Some unheard string of notes in a song, an unexpected splash of color. A new feeling—something without a name that doesn’t ask for—doesn’t need one to be lovely, or powerful, or dark.”

Dean’s mouth parts, and a brief vulnerability punctures his expression, but he quickly buries it when Castiel’s gaze returns, replacing it with his trademark devil-may-care grin. “You sure you’re not the poet?” he asks. 

“If I was, I’d consider it a life well-lived,” Castiel answers solemnly, staring too intently, as always, back at Dean. “What a blessing it must be—to create. What an honor.” _And a familiar feeling, now,_ Castiel thinks. _Longing._

“C’mon, man. You create,” Dean says, softening, sinking back lazily into his chair. “Or don’t you remember you helped rewrite the damn apocalypse?” 

Castiel briefs a smile, but shakes his head. “Thank you, but that isn’t what I meant,” he says, and his eyes track down to the book once more. “I’m thankful I experience it,” he continues. “Had I stayed in Heaven, never come for you, I’d have never known. Small gods, you humans. Miracles.”

 

Dean is silent, careful as he watches Castiel thumb open the book again, sip his beer. “Was it worth it?” he finally asks. “All the pain, the literal torture, death—for this? Art, people?”

“For you, you mean?” Castiel looks up, his eyes dark with meaning, voice low and even, matter-of-fact. “Yes. It’s as I said, back in that barn when we thought I was dying: I love you. You’ve changed me. Knowing you has been the best part of my long, long life.”

Dean’s mask breaks, and to hide it, he clears his throat, downs his beer. He dips a curt nod and grumbles, “Good. Yeah, good. And uhh—right back at you, Cas. You’re family. I mean that.”

“I know,” says Castiel, evenly. “Thank you.”

“Yeah,” says Dean, and scoots back from his chair. “Listen, uhh—the beer did it for me. Gonna hit the hay. See you in the morning?”

“I’ll be here,” Castiel answers, smiles, and looks away to crack open his book. Dean nods, clears his throat once more, and pads off down the dark hallway.

Once Castiel hears the door close down the hall, he lets his shoulders go slack and the book fall closed, a large hand reaching up to wipe down over his face—a gesture, he knows, he picked up from Dean. Dean, the most beautiful, frustrating soul he’s ever known. Dean, the Righteous Man, the hunter, the son, brother, once-father. Dean has lived so many lives in his short time—a blink, to someone like Castiel, who has witnessed the birth and fall of nations, of stars. Or, at least, it used to be: time isn’t a construct Castiel considered real before his time on Earth—a human notion, a means of measuring simplistic things like the movements of planets around suns—arbitrary. A liquid, not a line. But here? Here, time is real, and painfully so: how many times has he looked at Dean like that, with him looking back, saying nothing, but wanting? How has he, large and boundless seraph, come to know days that feel as long as eons once did? 

Feelings. It’s feelings that are to blame, and his fall from grace, and this complicated love for people—for Sam, and even stranger and more infuriating for Dean. That unnamable, pleasantly painful wrenching in his chest, all for a green-eyed man he met in Hell. 

Frustrated, Castiel drops his hand from his eyes and begins to read, flipping to the title page: _Cien Sonetos de Amor, or, One Hundred Love Sonnets, by Pablo Neruda. Translated by Stephen Tapscott._ His gut twists oddly: why would Sam give him a book of love poems? Does he know? Is this a hint? 

Castiel sucks in a deep breath and blows it out, steadies himself. Convinces himself it’s probably nothing, just a book that Sam, who has always been more in touch with emotions than his brother, found moving. Falsely comforted, he turns to Sonnet I: _Matilde, the name of a plant or a rock or a wine, which is born of the earth, and enduring…_

*  
It’s nearly three AM, four hours since Dean’s departure, by the time Castiel finishes Sonnet 16. It isn’t that he’s a slow reader—in fact, it’s quite the opposite: were he reading only to consume, he could have finished the collection in minutes. But with his newfound appreciation for time, and art, he likes to take things slow: he reads each line of every poem tens of times over, picking apart each word and phrase, each bit of punctuation—why did he place this word just so? why end the line there, or choose this phrase exactly?—to try and find the hidden meanings, the feeling at the root of it all. 

It's an annoying labor of love. With the 16th sonnet, he tries something new. Tries to, as Sam says, ‘just feel what the words are doing, don’t try too hard to understand.’ The most moving art, the younger Winchester claims, is the art that changes you without you knowing why, or how. So Castiel tries, and admittedly, he feels a pang in his heart not unfamiliar to the one he gets when Dean lets his own gaze linger too long, or when he receives one of Dean’s rare embraces. Castiel savors the moment, closes his eyes and lets the feeling root in his chest like a third expanding lung, filling him up before he turns the page. 

_SONNET XVII_ , he begins, body full of aching light. 

_I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,_  
_or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:_  
_I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,  
_in secret, between the shadow and the soul.__

_____ _

__

__

_I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries_  
_the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,  
_and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose  
_from the earth lives dimly in my body.___

_____ _

_I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,_  
_I love you directly without problems or pride:  
_I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,  
_except in this form in which I am not nor are you,  
_so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,  
_so close that your eyes close with my dreams._____

____

____

Castiel’s third lung overfills and bursts. He feels like he’s choking even though he can breathe, and his human heart thumps wildly in his chest, flips over and over like a flat stone rolling down a hill—heavy, hard, each impact a palpable thud. He knows Dean is sleeping, knows it, but—what is this need? The same as before, but more—a feeling without a name, suddenly trying to earn one, grow a body of its own, a life: love. _No, not just love,_ he thinks. _That isn’t enough._ He cycles through the lexicon of his Enochian mother tongue, and comes up with nothing; runs through every language that has ever been, simultaneously, thumbing through the pages of history like a madman: _amor, dashuri, n’anya, aroha, love_ ; a thousand dead and living words cycling like a jet-engine-quick card catalogue in his mind. 

It’s all of them and none of them. He exhales, turns back to the page, rereads and rereads the two infuriating lines: 

_I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,  
in secret, between the shadow and the soul._

Castiel, angel of the Lord, ruler of Thursday and Saturn, mask of soldier’s control, falls apart. He screeches his chair back loudly, doesn’t bother to heed the sleepy hour, can’t bring himself to care. What does it matter if he wakes Sam? Sam’s the one who did this to him; Sam gave him the book. He must have known. He must have. 

With the bunker’s warding, Castiel can’t teleport, and each step down the hallway to Dean’s door feels painfully slow; the rush in his blood flurries him forwards, heart thumping out an insistent mantra: _tell him, tell him, tell him._ What was it about poetry that pushed feeling to the brink? Why did these words, arranged just so, make it tumble over willingly, make it leap from his chest to the precipice of his lips, eager to fling itself from the edge? In too long, and not long enough, Castiel is at Dean’s door. He doesn’t knock; he can’t. The sound would be wrong, and there’s no time for that—can’t let anything interrupt the _tell him beat._

Dean isn’t a heavy sleeper. When Castiel bursts through the door he’s already sitting up, the gun he keeps beneath his pillow trained on whatever might be coming through—on Castiel. He sighs and grumbles, tossing the firearm heavily to the nightstand. 

“Damnit, Cas! You trying to get shot?” he asks, and then falters, nothing the angel’s fervor, the disheveled spikes of his hair, trenchcoat and jacket abandoned, white sleeves rolled sloppily to elbows. “Cas—woah, buddy, you okay? What’s—”

“I love you,” Cas interrupts, breathlessly. Dean’s face, untrained with the fog of sleep, goes slack and shocked. Cas doesn’t stop. He makes his way to the bed, pulls up on his knees atop the sheets curled around Dean, takes the hunter’s jaw in both his hands. “I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between—between the shadow and the soul.”

Dean doesn’t speak. His jaw hangs slack and the heat rises through his neck and cheeks. He doesn’t care, or doesn’t notice, that the door is wide open. He can feel the power coming off Castiel’s skin in waves—power he hasn’t felt from the angel for years. “What happened?” he finally manages, an almost-whisper.

“Neruda,” Castiel says simply, and lurches his lips forward to capture Dean’s. The force of it knocks the hunter to his back against the mattress, and Castiel stays with him, unwilling to break from the other’s body. 

Dean is stiff at first, despite Castiel’s heat and desperation; his eyes wide with shock, his mouth open, but still. He feels locked in his body by his mind: he shouldn’t want this, should he? Oh, but he does—has for a long time, for years, and pushed it down. Was never the right time, or place, or the world was ending next weekend—always an excuse to call Castiel _brother_ instead of _mine._

Castiel must have noticed, because he suddenly stops. The warm energy radiating from his body curls inwards, leaving Dean cold, and Castiel rocks back to sit on his heels, eyes wide and bright with horror. “Dean, I—”

“Shh—stop,” Dean croaks, his own heart racing now, breaths heavy. He watches Castiel, watches the angel slipping slowly from his frenzy back into that familiar self-control and guilt that Dean hates so much—and his gut twists. He reaches up, catches the angel by the chin, finally asks quietly, “So…Neruda?”

“Neruda,” Castiel repeats, wary. 

Dean smiles. “Bout time,” he murmurs, and drags Castiel back down, pulls their lips into a wildfire of an embrace. They knot themselves together in the sheets. They’re still tangling at dawn.


End file.
